Nicolas Darveau-Garneau: "The Greatest AI Risk is Inaction."

(0:00) Intro. (1:28) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel . (2:14) Start of interview. (3:09) Nick's "origin story." (6:36) On his first startup IMix.com (focused on music streaming) (7:55) His pivot as an equity analyst at Sanford Bernstein. (8:32) His focus on investing in and advising internet companies. (9:56) His time at Google (2010-2022), first in Canada then as Chief Evangelist. (13:21) His time at Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at Coveo , a Canadian AI company (2022-2023). (14:44) Joining the boards of the Toronto Stock Exchange , iA Financial Group , McEwen Mining , and Alida and advising boards on AI. Teaching at the Rotman School of Management, Northwestern and the Canadian Institute of Directors (ICD). (16:55) Defining AI . The types of AI: 1) Computational AI, 2) Sensors AI, and 3) Generative AI. (21:22) The future of Generative AI: Big Tech or startups? (24:42) On whether the investment mania in AI is justified. "This technology wave is likely to be much more significant than the internet." "It's the most important technology wave that I have ever seen in my career." (26:19) How corporate directors should think about opportunities and risks of AI . "The most important thing in governance for a board, in my view for AI, is making sure there is movement." Other risks: 1) Use of confidential information, 2) Creating a private version of AI, 3) Hallucinations (fake information by AI), 4) Issues of bias. Corporate training. (35:07) On where AI fits in board committees , and on surge of AI experts on boardrooms . *recommendation by Nick: Coursera class on prompt engineering (Vanderbilt University). (39:51) On AI regulation by the US ( EO by President Biden ), EU , Canada and others. (46:03) The US-China race on AI - geopolitical implications. *reference to Marc Andreessen's article Why AI Will Save the World . (50:03) On OpenAI's board fiasco and some of the unusual governance structures of leading AI companies. (54:45) Books that have greatly influenced his life: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943) 1984 by George Orwell (1949) (55:50) His mentors: #1 his mother, #2 McKinsey & Co. (56:33) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives her life by: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" by Wayne Gretzky. (57:30) An unusual habit or absurd thing that he loves: Keeping track and data of his healthcare. He recommends the book "Outlive" by Peter Attia. Two tests that he recommends: Cleerly heart scan using AI and Galleri test for cancer detection. Tracks VO2 Max. (1:00:04) The living person he most admires: Anders Tegnell (Sweden's state epidemiologist). (1:02:18) Recommendation for corporate directors on where to get started on getting educated on AI. Nicolas Darveau-Garveau is an AI and digital transformation expert. He was Google’s Chief Evangelist and worked as Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Coveo, a leading AI company. He currently serves on the boards of the Toronto Stock Exchange, iA Financial Group, McEwen Mining, and Alida. You can follow Evan on social media at: X: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/  Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive ): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

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